Exploring Religion & Culture: Naome Shihab Nye's 'Different Ways to Pray' - Essay Sample

Introduction

Naome Shihab Nye’s use of the free verse style form in ‘Different Ways to Pray’ creates a sense of religion and culture and a more robust spiritual response for the audience.

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The poet has brought out how much she has explored the different cultures and made visible the difference between Americans and Palestine. Her focus was mainly on the different ways that the Muslims pray. The poem has been written on the free verse style with no rhythm but has, however, used figurative language.

The poet uses visual imagery to put emphasizes on how believers pray and worship their deity. The visual imagery comes out when the narrator describes how the followers dress up in new as they travel through the sands as they head to Mecca; the worshippers dress in white new clothing. Mecca is a concrete noun used to symbolize a holy place where Muslims across the globe meet to worship and ask for forgiveness. Wrapping themselves in white linen to show that they are born new and all the sins they had committed before have been washed away.

On the other hand, cousins and grandmothers everyday performing their pilgrimage. As they balanced baskets of grapes and sing to sing to perspiring mothers, they passed their prayers to thank God for the good health. The poet uses a metaphor to showhow the lives of the cousins and grandmothers that lived far from the river had to walk for long to fetch the water comparesto the believers taking a journey to Mecca. Since it was long, it took a lot of time and consumed a lot of energy. In conclusion, the poem gives a clear picture of how different people that is men, women, and even children, have different ways of praying.

Title of poem: Different Ways to Pray Author: NaomeShihab Nye

Pros Cons

“While for certain cousins and grandmothers the pilgrimage occured daily, lugging water from the spring” “Some prized the pilgrimage, wrapping themselves in new white linen to ride buses across miles of vacant sand”

“they would bend to kiss the earth and return, their lean faces housing mystery.”

Client: Abstract and Concrete A concrete noun is something or someone you can touch. The desk. An abstract noun is an idea or something that you cannot interact with using your five senses. Disappointment is a thing or idea, but you can’t smell it (although that would make a very creative sentence: “He smelled like disappointment as he walked through the room.” Ha!) Analysis One of the main focuses of this course will be learning how to analyze. Analysis is looking at the concrete elements of something and coming to conclusions about the abstract elements. We will ask, “What do you see?” and “What does it mean?” In this course, we will focus on analyzing poetry, literature, and rhetoric, but you can use the skills you learn to analyze anything; once you start to exercise your analysis muscles, you’ll find yourself analyzing everything from music lyrics to the takeout menu from the restaurant down the street! When we learn to analyze, we are learning to look at and think critically about the world around us, and to see how people are attempting to shape our conclusions. We also gain a greater ability to appreciate the world, including its art, music, poetry, cinema, literature, and theater. It deepens our ability to connect to those around us and those who have gone before us. Later, we will specifically be practicing rhetorical analysis, in which we look at how arguments are made and information is presented in order to persuade. Before we begin, though, think about the following: when you listen to a speech, see a painting, read a book, listen to music, or even interact with another person, a couple of things happen. First, and some would say most importantly, there is your reaction to (or perception of) what you are observing or reading or listening to. Second, there is the intent of the piece, and third, there is the context in which it was created. As we look at the details and concrete aspects of the piece, we can begin to come to conclusions about the more abstract elements. Maybe a piece of music makes you sad. Why? Is it in a minor key? Is the subject or topic something with which you have negative associations? Maybe you notice the repetition of an image in a movie and wonder what the director might have intended. Let’s look at a picture and see what we can come up with. Family sitting outside in lawn chairs, wearing some kind of glasses and looking up in the same direction. You can see their shadows behind them. Photo used with permission of photographer, Kristal Pearson Hartman On a piece of paper, write out the following: What do you see? (concrete) What does it mean? (abstract) This is called a T-chart, because the line under the two column headings and the line between the columns makes a T shape. You’ll use T-charts throughout this course as a tool for analyzing things. Here are some things you might fill in on the concrete side of the T-chart: Some type of glasses Facing the same direction Sitting in the street Group of people Looking up Shadows behind them Now, make an conclusion about what this photo means, or shows, and write it on the abstract side of the T-chart. Maybe coming to a conclusion was easy for you! Perhaps you remember the Great American Eclipse of 2017? But if you hadn’t experienced that yourself, maybe you could have figured it out by analyzing the picture, looking at the concrete elements to come to more abstract conclusions. Lloyd F. Bitzer was, among other things, a communications professor and the author of “The Rhetorical Situation.”1 He outlined ideas about communication that have since been illustrated this way: A circle diagram of the rhetorical situation. Within a large blue circle is an orange triangle. Each point of the trianle is labeled, as follows: audience, speaker, and message. The inside of the circle not covered by the triangle is labeled as context. The inside of the triangle is labeled as purpose. Diagram of the elements of communication Adapted by Faith Woodard based on the ideas of Lloyd F. Bitzer In short, he stated that the message being communicated is affected by what the speaker says, as well as how that message is understood by the audience, and the reason, or purpose, that the message is being communicated. On top of that, the context in which it is delivered matters. When we refer to context, we are talking about the motivation for delivering the message in the first place and also what was happening to influence the creation of the message.